


Blanket of leaves

by Ghelik



Series: The 100 Fics [36]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 06:39:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11641044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: Madi tells the story of her life: from the moment mom found her to the descent of the Seven Heroes from the sky castle





	Blanket of leaves

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a Tumblr conversation between two people, none of which was I: @spookyflashlight and @rosymamacita: (in short) what if Madi and Clarke get separated and Bellamy and spacekru come across a lost Madi looking for her mom.

Madi is six years old when mom finds her.  She is in the dark stinky cave, where she and Papa hid from the rain. She's sitting as far away from Papa's blistered body as possible. He isn't breathing, isn't moving.  Madi is scared of getting too close to him. The smell is terrible.

 

The first time Madi sees Mom, she's carrying a tiny star in her hand, has blisters on her forehead and a black cut high on her cheek. She inspects Papa's body and doesn't notice Madi at first. When she does, her eyes go wide.  She says her name is Clarke and offers her something dry and hard to eat. Clarke speaks the language of the warriors and, when she switches to regular speak, she has a strange accent Madi can't place. The stranger tends to the girl's scraped knee and doesn't comment on the fact that her blood is black. Before her Papa stopped moving, he always cautioned Madi against strangers. Strangers who noticed her blood was black wanted to take her to Polis. " _I am sorry about your father_ ," Clarke says with her weird accent. " _Are you on your own? Where is your mother._ "

" _She didn't come back from the rain._ "

Clarke's eyes are sad when she nods her head. " _I am alone, too."_

_"What clan are you from?"_

_"I was skaikru. But that doesn't matter anymore."_

When the stranger that later would become Mom asks her to leave the cave with her, Madi knows she shouldn't do it. Knows it's dangerous to go with strangers because her blood is black and children with black blood have to fight to become Heda. But she's scared of being alone, doesn't want to stay alone with Papa's blood-covered body. And Clarke's blood is black, too. How dangerous can it be? 

 

The warrior woman takes her into a noisy beast - rover - and drives it away from the cave, through the devastated lands that were once the kru's territory. Madi doesn't recognize any of it. 

 

Years later, when Mom and Madi are exploring, they come across the cave where Mom first found her. Papa's body isn't there anymore, a pretty bus blooming in his place, slowly making its way up to the light. 

 

Mom came from the sky. She was one of the hundred bad children that came before the second Praimfaya. Moreso, she was the _princess_  of the bad children. Madi guesses that's why her hair is spun sunshine and her eyes shine as blue as the sky on a bright day. With her deep and raspy voice, Clarke recounts the adventures of all the bad children: how they fought gods, monsters, and awful rules.  Clarke draws their faces and the places they visited together. The pictures of the Mountain Men are the scariest. 

Madi knows some of those stories aren't real. Sometimes she doesn't believe any of them. Usually, she believes them all. 

 

Once upon a time, the kru's lands were full of people. Those were the times before Praimfaya when the sky heroes roamed the earth. Madi is vaguely aware of the fact that she lived in a world in which there were more than just two people. But with every year that passes, those memories become more and more dreamlike. At some point, she isn't sure if she remembers, or if it's only a part of mom's stories.  

 

 

Every now and then, they find crumbling tunnels on their travels. Mom tells her she doesn't have to be scared of the Mountain Men and monsters lurking in the darkness. "We must be wary, though," Clarke explains. "Especially after heavy rain." The lack of trees makes the ground slippery, and landslides make holes appear out of nowhere. The rubble hiding and making them all the more dangerous.

 

 

They find a new cave in the ‘green patch’ and settle there when Madi is around eight years old. Mom gets them big fat flesh-eating chickens because she is the smartest, and so they have eggs and chicken on Unity Day.

 

There are three days in which Madi can ignore her chores and doesn't have lessons. Her birthday - they celebrate it on the day Mom found her -; Praimfaya Day- the anniversary of the end of the world -; and Unity Day. 

Clarke misses her sky castle the most on Unity Day. She looks up at the sky where the Seven Heroes live and tries to see the Ark even with the sun shining in her eyes and making her all teary. She tells the best stories on Unity Day, too. Remembering stuff from when she lived up there. She talks about Wells - her best friend in the whole world- and Abby - her mom-, and her Papa, Jake.  

 

Some nights, when the sky is clear, they lie down on the rover’s hood and watch the stars. Madi squints up at the black sky and tries to see the Ark: a ring of metal full of heroes. 

 

Clarke has told her the bravest, smartest, kindest, most resilient warriors are up there. Their names: Raven Reyes, Monty Green, Harper McIntyre, John Murphy, Emori, Echo and Bellamy Blake. Mom says they're coming back, just a few more years and she'll meet them all. 

Madi likes to imagine what they are be doing up there. Are they be eating big roasts and having mock fights? Do they have chores? Surely they don't because they are the best and bravest and when you were the savior of the world you get to have to time off.

  

“Well. Raven’s probably tinkering with the water processor,” Mom doesn't think the Seven Heroes are frolicking and playing all day long. In her stories, they are always solving problems. She describes their space adventures, starting with Raven and ending with Bellamy. 

Bellamy is the bravest of them all. He was not a bad child like the rest of the hundred, but a king in his own right, a rebel and a knight, sworn to protect and bring knowledge of Before Praimfaya to the children; to protect his sister and help the princess.

 

Sometimes mom doesn't feel up to anything, not even waking up. She groans and turns around in the fur bed at the back of their cave and refuses to eat, drink or even speak. Her eyes are dull, nearly storm-gray instead of vibrant blue, rimmed in red and puffy. Sometimes she doesn't even turn away, just lays there like a ragged doll, staring into the middle distance. She doesn't answer when Madi speaks to her, doesn't stir when she shakes her shoulder. Those times are the scariest because they reminded her of papa. On those –rare – occasions, Madi nuzzles into her side, clutching mom to her and peppering her jaw and neck with ‘mouse-kisses’ until she snaps out of it and returns the hug. 

“I am sorry, my little _natblida_ ” sobs mom against her hair. “I’m awake now.”

 

Sometimes, when the game is too dangerous or when she needs more time than just the hour after sunrise to speak with the Ark, mom goes hunting on her own. It isn't the usual because mom loves her and would be lost without her- she has told her and mom doesn't lie. But sometimes she is be all melancholy and sad and leaves for the day. 

At nine, Madi is used to it. She hates it but understands that mom will always come back. She will always come back because she promised she will never leave her alone. Still, when mom comes back, Madi launches herself at her and sleeps clinging to her side.

 

On the days when she is on her own, tending the chickens, doing her reading and running around the cave's perimeter, she pretends to be one of the Hundred Delinquents. She imagines herself as Bellamy’s Second, the mighty warrior overseeing her raids on the chicken’s pen and the retrieval of the Apples of Wisdom from the highest branches of the tallest tree near the cave. She fights against the evil monsters with a wooden sword mom made for her and tricked Murphy, the trickster, into doing chores for her and complained to Raven about the science mom had her study. But, inevitably, she ends up playing with Bellamy.

 

There are pictures of all of her heroes hanging on the walls of their cave. Bellamy's portrait is the most beautiful of them all with his thin-lipped smile, the creases around his eyes and the unruly hair. Mom says the pictures don’t do him justice, but Madi thinks it's impossible for him to be more handsome than he is in the painting.

 

Octavia and Lincoln's story seems so dreamy. At least for the first part, then Lincoln had to get himself killed and ruin everything. The whole notion of meeting a mysterious stranger is exhilarating. Madi dreams of being found by someone, even knowing there is nobody else to find her. More often than not the mysterious stranger turns out to be Bellamy, taking her in his arms and holding her close.

 

 

A row of pomegranate trees marks the border sixty clicks northeast from the cave. On the other side lives  _Pauna_ : a dangerous and murderous giant gorilla. They come across it when Madi is nearly eleven years old, and they almost don't make it out of its territory alive. The animal chases them, tearing through the forest at a dizzying speed that puts the rover to shame. Fortunately, _Pauna_ doesn't usually leave its territory, which means they have most of the green land to themselves. Mom forbids her to ever go near the pomegranate trees. 

 

They cross paths with the giant monkey from time to time. Sometimes it goes down to the lake to drink. Madi learns that, if they stay on their side and don’t move, the beast just does its business and leaves, stinky maw dripping water. Sometimes it jumps into the lake with a great splash and fishes.

 Once it waded out of the water with a writhing fish in its giant paw and sat just a dozen feet from where mom and Madi had been washing their clothes. _Pauna_ smashed the fish against a rock, tore it open and started eating, canines as long as Madi’s forearm, covered in fish guts and blood. Madi soiled herself when the intelligent brown eyes of the gorilla fell on them. She and mom stayed completely immobile until it left. That night mom told her the story of _Pauna’s_ brother, who had torn out the arm of a sky warrior and had chased her and the _Heda_ through the forest.

 

  

Madi is eleven and a half when mom falls into one the treacherous manholes. She has never heard her scream like that before; it is bloodcurdling. When she shines her flashlight down, she sees mom with tears in her eyes, one of her legs twisted at an awkward angle, black blood splattered everywhere.

 

Hauling her out of the deep hole takes them over two hours, and they are both panting by the end of it. Mom's leg is severely injured, a piece of bone piercing her thigh. She tries not to scream when Madi helps her put the bone back in. She is pale and sweaty, and her eyes as glassy as papa's eyes had been before falling asleep coughing blood and something white-ish. 

 

The emergency bandages in their field backpacks aren't enough to completely immobilize the broken limb, but they manage to stop the bleeding. "We were lucky it didn't pierce an artery." She tries to smile, but it looks like a grimace. "You'll need to bring the rover 'round, Madi. I won't be able to get back to the cave."

 

It isn't the first time she drives the rover, but it is the first time she does it without mom and every bump in the way, every unexpected branch scraping against the windows sets her heart racing. She brings it as close as possible, but even so, she can’t navigate it over the treacherous ground. Mom and Madi have to hobble through the dense underbrush for ten minutes to reach it.

 

Mom gives slurred instructions for setting the leg and making a cast out of clay. Before Madi finishes, mom is unconscious and for a few terrifying hours didn’t even stir. Madi sits at her mom's side and calls the Ring, clutching the radio to her chest and crying against the mouthpiece, begging Bellamy not to take her mom to the sky. "You're a hero. You must protect mom, please. I still need her. Please. Please."

 

It takes Madi three weeks to get over the fear of that moment and ask "how did you know it hadn't pierced an artery?" Mom looks up from the socks she's mending. Her leg still encased in the cumbersome cast. "I wasn't sure 100%. But I probably would've bled to death before you managed to pull me out of the hole." She smiles and crushes Madi in a fierce hug. “You don’t need to worry about me, bean. I am ok.”

 

As it turns out the leg doesn't heal well. Mom can't run right anymore. When it rains, the wound hurts, sometimes it hurts out of nowhere, and mom stops with a gasp. Even when she has tears in her eyes, she always says she is ok. 

 

 

"It's almost time," says Mom with a huge smile. Her eyes often stray to the sky now. Sometimes she stops to listen, not for prey or thunder, but for the roaring of the rocket's thrusters. Madi can't help being excited and a little nervous as well. 

 

After so many years she will finally meet her heroes. Will they look like the pictures hanging on the walls in their cave? Will they be taller than mom - mom said Bellamy and Murphy are tall? Will Raven bring her some sky tech from the Ark? Mom wants Monty to bring moonshine, but Madi doesn't know what that was. 

 

The day they are supposed to land, mom drives the rover to the edge of the green place, and they camp under the stars, naming constellations and making up those they don't know. 

 

The heroes don't come.

 Not that night, nor the next, or the one after that. 

They wait for a week, but they can't stay out here forever. They need to go back to their chickens and hunt and tend to their tiny garden.

 

Mom cries herself to sleep the night they got back to the cave.

 

 

One morning Madi wakes to mom's one-sided conversation with the Ark. "We can't unearth the bunker on our own, Bellamy."

 

Madi knows there are people under the earth, a lot more than up in the sky. Mom and Madi have tried unearthing the door to the bunker a few times over the years, but there is too much rubble, and they don't have the materials or the manpower to do it. 

 

“Why do you want to dig up the bunker, mom?”

 

“Well, there are a lot of people down there. They deserve to come out and see the sun and hunt and breathe fresh air.”

 

“But aren’t there monsters down there?”

 

“No, bean, they’re all part of our Kru. One Kru unified by Octavia.”

 

“So they’re all good?”

 

“There are no good guys, Madi. Nor bad guys. There are just people trying to survive and doing the best they can.”

 

Madi smiles because that always brings funny stories about Murphy and his sneakiness. Mom likes to use him as an example: of how she thought he was a bad guy at first, but he proved her wrong. Murphy is the polar opposite of Bellamy: cunning and selfish. Not a good fighter, not a good leader, but smart and resourceful, always thinking ‘outside of the box.’

 

“Wouldn’t you like someone else to keep you company?” asks mom instead of telling her a story.

 

“I have you.” Madi frowns. “Aren’t I enough for you?”

 

“You are everything to me, bean.” Mom pulls her against her chest and nips the top of her left ear. Madi squirms but doesn't fight the arms banded around her waist. “But I will not live forever. And I don’t want you to be alone.”

 

“I have Bellamy and the rest of spacekru to keep me company.”

 

Mom doesn't argue, but Madi knows she said something wrong.

 

For her birthday mom give her a new cloak, made of the glossy black fur of the panther Madi had killed a few months back.  It is warm and soft and so big she feels like it is giving her a huge hug.

 

 

Madi is thirteen years old when Pauna attacks. They were exploring a part of the forest they hadn’t been in for a long time when the gorilla came out of nowhere, roaring with bloodshot eyes.

 

“Run!” Mom pushes her to the left. “Run!”

 

And she does, running like she hasn’t run ever before, jumping over manholes and creeks and tearing through the underbrush without caring about ripping her pants or losing her way. She can hear Pauna panting behind her, hear him growl and crash through trees.

 

The ground vanishes from beneath her feet, and Madi has just enough presence of mind to grab hold of a bunch of roots and vines to break her fall, thorns digging hard into the palm of her hands. Her heart trying to leave her chest.

 

For hours she hangs there, listening, but _Pauna_ seems to have lost interest, or maybe it hadn’t been following her in the first place. Her arms are numb when she tries to haul herself up. After a few minutes, it becomes apparent that she won't be able to do it.

 

“Mom?” she calls. Maybe she comes this way looking for her. “Mom!”

 

Around her, the only thing she hears is the rustling of leaves and the chirping of birds. “Mom!” She looks up at the patch of sky she can see from her hole in the ground and watches the light and shadows dancing on the crumbling walls all around her. Either mom finds her or she'll have to pull herself up. But the longer she hangs there, the more her arms shake, and her hands ache. How long before the vines snap?

 

She takes a deep breath and screams as loud as she can, not caring about the risk of attracting _Pauna_ back.

 

“MOM! MOMI!”

 

A shadow falls across the opening. Her heart stops when Madi doesn't recognize her mom’s figure. It looks like a bear for a second. Then it crouches, and the sun highlights the dark curls and broad shoulders of a human.

 

“Hold on!” the stranger says, his voice deep and growly. If wolves could talk, they would sound like that.

 

If Madi hadn’t been so tired, she would’ve marveled at the sight of a stranger. As it is, she accepts one of her heroes coming to her aid like they’d done many times before in her games and her stories.

 

The stranger pulls her up, mindful not to accidentally snap any of the vines she had been clutching. Once she is safely back on solid ground, he rubs her shoulders to get the cramps away. His hands huge and warm and solid against her thin summer jacket.

But that is right, is it? Her heroes never touch her because they were never real. This man is touching her. She can feel it. Can feel his warm breath, smell the strange tang of his skin, see his footprints on the ground.

 

This is a man she has never seen before standing on the ground where nobody but her and mom live. This is the stranger stepping out of the shadows to save her, just like Lincoln had for Octavia in mom’s tales.

 

 He wears worn cargo pants and heavy leather boots, all scuffed and torn. His threadbare shirt has mended holes along the collar, the thin material stretched taut across his chest and over his arms.

 

“Are you hurt?” he asks with his dark voice, crouching to be at eye level with her, brown slanted eyes shining with worry.

 

Madi’s mouth snaps shut. She looks at his freckled face, a spike of excitement burning the tiredness away.

 

Mom was right: the pictures don’t do him justice. Because there is no denying the fact that the freckled broad-shouldered man kneeling in front of her is Bellamy.

 

“You came back!” Madi isn't sure what she is supposed to do or say. How do you greet the mightiest heroes to walk the earth? Mom should be here to welcome the spacekru.

 

His smile is nicer than on mom’s pictures. “Yeah. Sorry, it took a little longer than expected.” He ruffles her hair with his warm hand, and Madi’s heart skips a beat. “Where is everybody?”

 

She frowns. “Everybody?” Seeing his smile slowly disappear is extraordinarily sad. She racks her brain trying to understand what he meant. “Oh! You mean the people from the bunker?”

 

“Yes.” Bellamy nods slowly.

 

“We were waiting for you to unearth it.”

 

“We?” He asks, his frown deepening, and it too looks different than in the pictures. Before Madi can answer, though, someone else comes crashing through the trees: a man like Bellamy, with short brown hair, round blue eyes, and a long nose.

 

The first thing Madi hears Murphy say is: “Of course you managed to find a kid.” And then he turns to the forest and shouts: “He’s over here! He’s adopted a child already!”

 

Which would have made Madi argue – she isn’t a child anymore, thank you very much. But the rest of the Seven Heroes step from between the trees, and it is like a dream come true.

 

They are so much _more_ than she imagined.

 

Emori’s tattoo is darker, Harper’s eyes are sharper, Monty’s smile, kinder; Echo, taller, Raven speaks quicker, Murphy moves more, Bellamy is bigger than she had thought and it is exhilarating.

 

She forgets about _Pauna_ , forgets that she isn’t sure where she is exactly. Everything else seems less important in the presence of these people that saved the world; of these heroes, she has known all her life but has never spoken to.  

They are talking, but she can't hear them over the rushing in her ears. Murphy is the one to make a mean comment when she fails to give them an answer, but Raven slaps him over the head, just like in the stories and his indignant squeak has her laughing, the tension easing up a little.

 

Eventually, she manages to remember her mom who has been waiting for the Seven Heroes to come back, speaking to them over the radio every day for six years.

 

Finding her bearings takes her a little longer than it should have, but none of the seven heroes rushes her – not even Murphy - as they follow her lead back to the cave.

 

Bellamy stays close on the way back home, followed by Raven and Echo, with Harper bringing up the rear. “So, if you’re not from the bunker how did you survive?” asks Raven, Echo helping her over a dead tree and promptly tripping on some roots.

 

“Because of my blood. Mom and I have special blood. And we were not outside when the worst of Praimfaya hit.”

 

“Special blood?” asks Bellamy.

 

“Our blood is black.” Echo nearly walks into a tree it would’ve been funny if Bellamy didn’t look so pale, or if Raven didn’t share a wide-eyed look with the rest.

 

“You’re a _natblida_?” asks Emori.

 

“Yes. Mom found me after the death wave.”

 

Monty frown. “So she isn’t your mother?”

 

  
“Of course she is my mother!” she snaps indignantly.

 

Madi doesn't usually spare much thought for the time before mom. She doesn't remember mama’s face and the only thing that comes to mind whenever she thinks of Papa is his twisted body. His blood had been red, she distinctly remembers.

  

“What Monty means…” starts Raven. She seems at a loss for words, and Madi feels herself blushing with shame at her outburst. These are her heroes, and she is behaving like a kid.

 

“I know what you meant,” she grumbles. “Mom didn’t carry me. But she saved my life and  promised she would never abandon me as mama and papa had done.”

 

They stay in silence for a moment after that, and she is afraid her bad manners have made them not like her.

 

“Did your mom tell you about the bunker?”

 

“Yes. And about you in the sky castle! I know all of your adventures!” she can feel her blush depending. “She speaks every day to you on the radio.” Madi frowns. “Didn’t you receive any of her messages?”

 

“No.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Well, mom had said it was possible that they couldn’t hear her because the death wave had killed their electronic machines and that is why she had to stay behind. Still, she had hoped…

 

They reach the cave with its tiny fenced-off garden and the crooked chicken pen. “MOM!” she takes off at a sprint to go warn her that they will be having _guests_ – how cool was it that she can finally use that word for the first time in her life?

 

The rover isn't parked in its usual spot near the entrance to the cave.

 

She frowns as she steps into the cave. It is dark and silent. Mom should be back by now.

 

She pulls her flashlight out of her pocket and goes over to light a few candles near the back. The light is unnecessary. When empty, the cave has a distinctive _sound._ She looks around, feeling at a loss.

 

“I am sure your mom will come back soon,” Harper smiles at her. And maybe she is right. Maybe Madi should offer the Seven Heroes some food? Or a place to sleep? They have fallen out of the sky; they are bound to be tired.

 

Yes, she has to make mom proud and show them that she has good manners. It's already dark outside, so maybe mom will sleep in the rover and come back first thing in the morning.

 

Madi starts a fire and pulls some smoked meat from the ice box – which is a cold hole in the ground covered with a squeaky wooden lid. She warms the meat over the fire, and even though it isn’t the best, the Seven Heroes sitting around the fire, still moan in pleasure.

 

Monty has tears in his eyes. “This is the best thing I’ve eaten in years.”

 

“Go float yourself” grumbles Murphy around a mouthful. “You were welcome to cook anytime you wanted.”

 

Emori kisses the downturned corner of Murphy’s mouth with grease-covered lips and just like that they are devouring each other. Madi’s mouth falls open. What the hell?

 

Echo laughs softly from where she is sitting with Raven’s head on her shoulder. “They are disgusting like that pretty much all the time.”

 

Madi manages to get two stories out of them before they fall asleep right there around the fire. And this must be the best day of her life.

 

 

She wakes up before dawn, her heart jolting in her chest. Madi has a kink in her neck from sleeping on the floor by the fire, and for a dizzying moment, she doesn't know why she is there instead of in her bed. Then she sees Monty snoring across from her, and her heart skips a beat. She sits up with a start, turning to the cave’s entrance.

 

The rover is still missing as is her mom. Madi catches a movement out of the corner of her eye. Bellamy stands at the back of the cave, his back to the fire and one of the pictures hanging on the walls in his hand. Curious she walks over to him and looks at the picture in the cold hard light of his flashlight.

 

It is a rendition of the dropship in which one hundred bad children had been sent to earth – one hundred and one, mom would automatically correct. Bellamy had snuck into it to protect the children. Mom had taken her once to the desolate place where the hulking shadow of the metallic vessel still stood: ravaged by time and fire, but holding firm. It is more beautiful in mom’s picture blanketed in all the trees and with children running all around it.

 

“She’s alive.”

 

Bellamy’s expression is hard to read, mouth set in a straight line, eyes hard, a muscle in his jaw ticking. When he turns to her, his eyes seem to burn right through her. He smiles down at her, and his eyes are suddenly as soft as her panther-cloak. “You took care of her?”

 

Madi nods her head, yes, and he puts the picture back on the wall, right next to Madi’s portrait of mom. “Go back to sleep, Madi, I’m sure she will be back in the morning.”

 

But mom isn't back when Madi wakes up later that day, or after she feeds the chicken and the seven heroes and worry creeps into her. The sun isn't at its highest peak when they set off to look for her.

 

They set off in the direction they took the previous day. The rover is right where they had left it. Mom isn’t inside. “I don’t believe it!” exclaims Raven hobbling around the machine and then opening the hood with expertise. “Oh, baby what have they been doing to you?”

 

The group watches Raven gush over the rover. Echo has a soft smile on her lips, Emori rolls her eyes with exasperation. Monty shakes his head. “Come on, Reyes!” Murphy throws an apple at Raven’s face, but it misses by half a foot. He hangs upside down from a branch, munching on another apple. “You’ll have all the time in the world to tinker with the rover. Later, when we don’t have to stand by and witness it.”

 

Raven huffs indignantly but turns to Madi for her to lead the way. The group squeezes through the narrow path to the other side of the small patch of bushes that blocks the way and forced them to leave the rover behind yesterday.

 

The place where _Pauna_ attacked is instantly recognizable: splintered trees and smashed through plants. Madi’s beany laying in a puddle in the shape of the ape’s foot.

 

Her heart beats hard against her ribs, remembering the monkey’s roar and the stench of its breath. There had been something between its big yellow teeth. Right here mom stood between her and _Pauna_ and told Madi to run.

 

Finding mom's footprints isn't difficult finding: they are distinctively uneven with one longer and deeper where she favors her good leg. Yesterday must have been a bad day because the second step is way shorter than usual.

 

The gorilla plowed through the trees to the left, and maybe it didn't follow her but mom. Monty finds the rifle a couple of hundred feet down the newly opened path. Did Madi hear a shot? She can't remember.

 

Monty passes the rifle to Bellamy who inspects the carefully carved names all over the wooden handguard, strap, and buttstock. Mom sometimes touched the names like that, like it wasn't just letters engraved on worn wood but precious, living creatures like she was afraid to break them.

 

It is wrong that the rifle is here. Mom loves this one, she likes it better than any other gun they own – and they have quite a few. She wouldn’t just _drop_ it, so, where is she?

 

The footprints stop abruptly. They don't turn to a tree she might have climbed, nor does the ground fall away into a natural well. They just stop, and Madi doesn't understand. Where is she?

 

She cups her hands around her mouth and shouts “Mom!” Where the hell is she?

 

Madi catches the flash of sunlight out of the corner of her eye and is sprinting before she even notices. “Mom!” She lays on the ground, leaves covering her worn out jacket like a red and brown blanket. Her eyes are close – maybe she is sleeping? – but doesn't stir when Madi shakes her shoulder.

 

“Mom?” she nuzzles her jaw, trying to stir her with mouse-kisses. “Mom, the seven heroes have returned.” Her skin is ice-cold.

 

Behind her someone shifts, someone takes in a sharp breath. “Mom, you have to wake up.”

 

“Madi…” Bellamy’s huge warm hand falls on her shoulder. She shrugs it off.

 

“Come on, Mom. We have to go home.”

 

Bellamy pulls her away, and Madi screams and writhes, trying to get back to mom’s side. Raven kneels beside Mom and puts a finger to her cold, pale neck. The hero’s eyes shine with unshed tears. She looks up and shakes her head, the ponytail bouncing from side to side. The arms around Madi’s chest tighten.

 

No.

 

“Mom!”

 

She can’t breathe.

 

“Mom wake up!”

 

She promised. She promised she would not leave her alone. “You promised!” Madi kicks the air and pulls on Bellamy’s iron grip, but he doesn’t budge “Mom, wake up!” and this can't be happening. Mom can’t be… “You promised!”

 

Mom doesn't stir. She lays there on the ground, blanketed by fallen leaves. And maybe in a few years in her place will be a beautiful crop of flowers or a small bush heavy with the sweet red berries she likes so much. But, right now, she looks peaceful and asleep.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So.... I'll just leave now, hide under a rock
> 
> As always this was unbetad 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and commenting ^^


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